Reviews, appreciation and analysis of all things opera
William Burnett 
Mexican-born composer Daniel Catan, who is a resident of Los Angeles and a champion of operas in the Spanish language, has composed a new opera, “Il Postino”, that opened the Los Angeles Opera’s 2010-11 season. The new work advances both Catan’s personal reputation and the cause of Spanish-language opera. The subject suggests several themes – … Read more
San Francisco Opera, whose history has been firmly based in the Italian wing of the opera repertory, continued the project of General Director David Gockley and Music Director Nicola Luisotti to restore the house’s reputation as a first rank company for producing the operatic works of Giuseppe Verdi. San Francisco Opera’s 2010 season opened with … Read more
Note from William: The odds against any opera being successful are very long. However, if newly composed operas are not performed, or if once they are first performed, they are never performed again, then there is almost no chance of new works joining the standard operatic repertory. The Santa Fe Opera since its founding in … Read more
Note from William: This post continues my series of observances of historic performances that I attended at San Francisco Opera during the general directorship of Kurt Herbert Adler. This is the first of five such observances of performances from the company’s 1960 Fall season. My musical tastes as a teenager in San Diego encompassed most … Read more
Over the past couple of years, a selection of Benjamin Britten operas, including major new productions of “Billy Budd’ and “Albert Herring” at Santa Fe Opera; “Death in Venice” at Hamburg Staatsoper; and “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Turn of the Screw” at Houston Grand Opera have been highlighted in this website’s features In Quest of Britten – … Read more
Part I of this interview may be found at: Heartland Heartthrob: An Interview with Nathan Gunn, Part I. [Below: Nathan Gunn; edited image, based on a photograph from www.texasperformingarts.com.] Wm: One of your colleagues in one of my interviews suggested that your physical exercise regimen and your physical appearance have put pressure on other operatic males … Read more
[The following interview with baritone Nathan Gunn was conducted in August, 2010.] Wm: You grew up in South Bend in Northern Indiana, and now reside in Champagne-Urbana, in East Central Illinois. Yet you spend a part of each year in the world’s great cosmopolitan cities, even while you are paterfamilias for a large family back … Read more
William’s note: I first interviewed Conductor Antony Walker at the new offices of the Pittsburgh Opera (in the historic building that was originally part of the factory of the Westinghouse Brake Company. (See: Interviewing Conductor Antony Walker on Undervalued Masterpieces – and His Unexpected Celebrity.) This second interview took place at the Santa Fe Opera … Read more
Nashville is the official capital of the State of Tennessee and the world’s unofficial capital of American country music, but it is also the birthplace and home town of Wagnerian heldentenor Clifton Forbis. In yet another extraordinary example of what might properly be described as a Golden Age of American opera singing, Forbis is inhabiting the … Read more
[William’s Note: the following interview with tenor Brandon Jovanovich was conducted on the “ranch” of the Santa Fe Opera for which Jovanovich is performing the role of Pinkerton in the 2010 summer festival’s new production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”.] Wm: You grew up in Yellowstone County, Montana and went to college near Arizona’s Grand … Read more
Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” is the Santa Fe Opera’s signature work, having been the first performance by the company in 1957 and having opened new houses in 1968 and 1998. The opera’s host city in Northern New Mexico takes pride in its 16th century European ties that precede the birth of opera, yet the State of … Read more
[The following interview took place in conjunction with Susan Graham’s participation in New Mexico’s Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival .] Wm: This summer and for several months afterwards, you will be concentrating on concerts and presentations of song cycles at festivals, rather than operatic performances. Do you find it rejuvenating to spend several months in … Read more
Santa Fe Opera, which in its 54 year history has performed 13 operas by Richard Strauss, several in multiple seasons, has seldom mounted works by 19th century French composers, beyond Bizet’s “Carmen”. Thomas’ “Mignon” was done in 1982, and Debussy’s “Pelleas et Melisande” (actually a 20th century work) was performed twice in the 1970s, and … Read more
The Summer of 2010 The Santa Fe Opera’s 2o1o season includes four new productions, including three operas never before performed by the company. The season opener is a new production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”, starring Kelly Kaduce (Butterfly), Brandon Jovanovich (Pinkerton), Elizabeth DeShong (Suzuki) and James Westman (Sharpless) with Conductor Antony Walker making his Santa … Read more
Since my review of the first performance of the new San Francisco Opera production of Puccini’s “Girl of the Golden West” was effusive in its praise of the singing, the conducting and the physical sets (see Voigt, Licitra Lead Sizzling San Francisco Centennial Celebration for “Girl of the Golden West” – June 9, 2010), one might … Read more
[The two parts of this interview took place in the Press Room of the War Memorial Opera House, where Mark Delavan was performing the role of Wotan in the San Francisco Opera Company’s production of Wagner’s “Die Walküre”.] Wm: You came from a musical family, your father being a college-level teacher of chorale conducting and … Read more
Previously, I had reviewed the first performance of this season’s production of Gounod’s “Faust” (see Racette Ravishing, Relyea Riveting in San Francisco “Faust” – June 5, 2010). This was the second of three separate mountings of the Robert Perdziola’s sets owned by the Lyric Opera of Chicago that I was or will be scheduled to review, … Read more
[Both parts of the following interview took place in the Green Room (now the Press Room) of the San Francisco Opera’s War Memorial Opera House, where John Relyea was performing the role of Mephistopheles in Gounod’s “Faust”.] Wm: You were born into a operatic family in Toronto with classically trained singing parents. Your father, Gary … Read more
I was fortunate to be able to attend both the first and second performances of San Francisco Opera’s mounting of Wagner’s “”Die Walküre” in a co-production with the Washington National Opera, conceived by the American stage director Francesca Zambello (See my review at An American “Walküre”: Runnicles, Wagner and Zambello At San Francisco Opera – June … Read more
The second installment of Francesca Zambello’s conceptualization of Wagner’s four opera “Ring of the Nibelungs” has debuted at the San Francisco Opera. A co-production with the Washington National Opera, three entire “Ring cyles” will comprise the San Francisco Opera’s Summer Season of 2011. Although the “Walküre” production is almost the same as the one I … Read more
The San Francisco Opera, a company with deep roots in the traditions of Italian opera, serving a city that was created by the California Gold Rush, launched a spiffy new production of “Girl of the Golden West (La Fanciulla del West)” – Puccini’s masterpiece about a love affair in a community of ’49er miners. Vocal … Read more
Gounod’s “Faust” returned to the San Francisco Opera stage after an absence of a decade and a half, in a Lyric Opera (Chicago) production by Robert Perdziola that is both resourceful and interesting. It proved the vehicle for displaying facets of the artistry of five San Francisco Opera-trained former Adler fellows, soprano Patricia Racette (Marguerite), … Read more
Over the past year, I have reviewed the first night of each of the four operas of the Los Angeles Opera’s production of Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelungs”. Regrettably, schedule conflicts have made it impossible for me to see the four operas in succession concentrated in a nine day period, or even to repeat all … Read more
When the Washington National Opera announced its first performances ever of Ambroise Thomas’ “Hamlet”, it seemed on paper an extraordinarily star-studded endeavor, with Carlos Alvarez as Hamlet, Diana Damrau as Ophelie and Placido Domingo conducting. Then the production came to seem star-crossed, with Alvarez withdrawing, a pregnant Damrau bowing out, and Domingo cutting back performances … Read more
